In the area of digital data processing devices, a continuing trend is to provide devices with higher rates of functionality and interconnectivity. This has generally led to greater amounts of confidential or personal information being stored or accessed by these devices.
While enhancing personal convenience and individual productivity, this trend also undesirably increases the chances of unauthorized access and dissemination of such information. This is exasperated by the fact that many such consumer electronic devices are portable hand-held devices, and these can be easily misplaced or stolen.
Some device developers have implemented security systems in an attempt to reduce the ability of a third party to gain access to the information in such a device. Such security systems often implement a security protocol that relies upon the ability to generate a true random number.
While a variety of systems have been proposed in the art, there is a continued need for improvements whereby a true random number can be generated easily and efficiently without a significant consumption of power by a device. It is these and other improvements that preferred embodiments of the present invention are generally directed.